Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Iraq War Vets and Suicide

[Vet Suicides] Big props to today's Salt Lake Tribune for a story on the shocking increase in Iraq War vet suicides in Utah.

It's certainly not possible to over-cover this issue. But I want to point out that City Weekly's Stephen Dark wrote an in-depth feature on this topic a full two months ago. Dark met regularly with members of Jason Ermer's family--his parents, brothers, widow and people involved in his care at the Salt Lake City VA hospital. He produced a riveting portrait of this young man and the events that helped drive him to taking his own life on New Year's Eve 2007. You'll get a deeper picture than what the Trib offered today, which is one of the best reasons to read this and other alternative publications. It's about depth and context, and with their ongoing financial and editorial constraints, mainstream media can't go much deeper than the immediate headlines these days. Read Stephen's piece here.

3 comments:

Sure, our nation's service men and women taking their own lives is a tragedy of epic scale -- but, hey, no reason not to use their pain and suffering as a way to pimp the weekly fish wrap over the daily one.

You cold-hearted hack.

Riddle me this: Why does the media (all the media, print, radio, TV, etc.) not comprehend how utterly despicable it is to use human sorrow as a way to promote their sorry-ass products, as in: "When innocent shoppers were gunned down at Trolley Square, KSL brought you the story live..." or, "Death inside a collapsed mine...The Tribune asks the hard questions.." or, see Darth Mullen's entry above.

Hey Hacks--get it thru your heads: You are a vehicle for selling diet aids, bras, and low-interest mortgages, and you use other people's misery to do it. I guess the only way you can live with yourselves is thru the self-delusion that you play a vital role in our republic.